ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) has expressed disappointment over complete omission of the most serious issue of sea intrusion from the International Water Conference organised by the Supreme Court last week.

In a statement issued by the party’s media office here on Tuesday, senior PPP leader and former senator Taj Haider said that during the hearings on the water issue in Karachi, he had personally submitted summaries and conclusions of six studies on sea intrusion to the court which was pleased to assure that the issue was of very serious nature and would be taken up in the international conference.

“It is not sweet water which is going into the sea. It is precious agricultural land of Pakistan that has been devoured by the sea,” Mr Haider said, adding that 2.5 million acres of Thatta and Badin districts had already been lost and the studies pointed out that if sea intrusion was not effectively checked, the sea would reach the city of Thatta by 2050, completely submerging the Indus delta.

Taj Haider says 2.5m acres of land in Thatta and Badin lost to sea

“If 32 MAF of fresh water per year was actually going into the sea, as claimed, we would not be facing the problem of sea intrusion. The fact is that even the 10 MAF release downstream Kotri agreed upon as an interim measure pending detailed studies in the inter-provincial water accord was not being provided,” he added.

Mr Haider said that construction of a carryover dam at Diamer-Bhasha would certainly serve to control heavy floods that came every eight to 10 years. The stored water, he said, could be used in subsequent years in a planned manner to make up for shortages in river flows. He said this would boost agricultural economy. The major problem is that no agreed operational criteria had been framed for the already existing two dams or for the two link canals, he added.

The PPP leader said Mangla and Tarbela dams were being operated as power plants and not as water reservoirs, giving priority to meet irrigation needs of the provinces as laid down in the water accord. Water needed for irrigation is not allowed to flow downstream in order to maximise the generation of electricity. It was obvious that in the absence of an agreed operational criterion, Bhasha dam would be similarly operated, he added.

“Wasn’t it a fact that the two link canals on Mehran at Chashma and Taunsa were also planed as flood canals but were later turned into perennial canals?” he asked.

In these days of highly developed agricultural technology, Mr Haider said, there were so many ways not only to overcome water shortages but also to multiply agricultural yields. However, there was only one way to save depleting river deltas and stop sea intrusion and that was to allow required quantities of fresh water to flow down to the sea, he concluded.

Published in Dawn, October 24th, 2018

Download the new Dawn mobile app here:

Google Play